


She Was My North, My South

by lleaflet



Series: Marcus Coleman [4]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Abernathy family is love Abernathy family is life, Canon Divergence, Drug Use, Eventual Smut, Found Family, Freedom, In this house we stan Codsworth, M/M, Music, Mutual Pining, Poetry, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, believing in love, so much of it, thanks Hancock for that tag, the slowest of slow burns like jesus h christ
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 03:55:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21451615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lleaflet/pseuds/lleaflet
Summary: And then one day, one magic day he passed my way.And though we spoke of many things, of fools and kings, this he said to me:"The greatest thing, you'll ever learn,Is just to love,and be loved in return."
Relationships: Codsworth & Sole Survivor (Fallout), Deacon/Male Sole Survivor, Deacon/Sole Survivor (Fallout), John Hancock & Sole Survivor (Fallout), Lucy Abernathy & Sole Survivor, Magnolia & Sole Survivor, Sole Survivor & Piper Wright, X6-88 & Sole Survivor
Series: Marcus Coleman [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1099134
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ahillamon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahillamon/gifts).

_The two of them halted as she stepped onto their path on top of the stairs. Her footsteps echoed in the hallway. The fire burned bright behind her. It towered far above her to the black night sky._

_The fire, it consumed the stadium. She turned her head to look down at the scene. She was all hard edges, a dark figure framed by the bright light._

_Fading gunfire. Shouting, silenced._

_Marcus held tightly onto Deacon’s hand behind him. Up here, it all seemed as distant as the voice Piper spoke in. It was her voice, but tainted as if snakes had slithered down her throat and poisoned her lungs:_

_“We’ve lied enough now. To ourselves, to each other.”_

_She turned to face them._

_“It’s time to stop lying."_


	2. The Final Plan

A good spy knows who he is.

After all, if a spy does not know who he is, how can he play pretend with the life of his friends on the line? If he does not know his ticks and tells and the many ways his own person could betray a disguise, he cannot be a convincing… whatever role of whichever person he needs to be at that time.

A spy must often go against his personal convictions and bury his beliefs, if it will serve the cause. A spy must get used to burying himself.

A good spy knows he does not matter. What he wants, or his opinions, they matter about as much as the world cares about a brahmin shitting.

You are a good spy. No course of action is above your personal pride. When you spread your legs at a source of information, you are whatever your fabricated personality at the time needs you to be. When racism and bigotry and threats roll easily off your tongue to win favors, there exists no voice inside you that screams against it.

You are a good spy when a 'you' does not exist. There is only your body that vessels the will of the cause you serve.

A good spy also does not get attached.

… Okay, real talk, that is bullshit advice. Of course you get attached. To people, to objects, places. Memories.

It is, in itself, not damning. Sociopaths stay attached only to themselves.

The important part is to be attached, but not in the wrong way. You need people to realize your goals, but the pesky thing here is that people come packaged with all sorts of little details prevalent to humans. The weight of a hand on your shoulder. The tingle of laughter.

A spy knows these things will not last. You can have your fun, but it will end very soon. You will get to keep nothing. Nothing but the cause.

And you, if anyone, are a damned good spy. You know all this.

So you have your fun and you take it where you can, but you take it very carefully. You jealously guard your heart, but you make it fun. Because fun, that will be the only thing that keeps you sane when plans crumble for the hundredth time and bodies fall all around you, and it’s because you’ve made a misstep somewhere along the line. Mistake after mistake. (Maybe you were a mistake too.)

So you make yourself fun. Make yourself a joke. It’ll be easier to let go when you’re no longer you but steering a stranger possessing your body.

You are Deacon.

Deacon is a good spy. He mourns for a while, for he acknowledges the scientific fact that human brains need that little bit of respite after such a trauma, and then he carries on. Because that is what he does, he carries on because the mission doesn’t have time to wait for him.

You watch the decaying, long dead face of your Tommy Whispers in the clammy, long dead nooks of Switchboard, with death in the air, death on your shoulders, death in your lungs, on your hands -

_on your shadow behind you, on your future in front of you,_  
_on every word you say_  
_and thought you think._

Deacon will carry on because there is no time to wait. You are a nihilistic piece of shit whom nothing can throw astray from the goal.

_Unless he smites his enemy,_  
_his body cannot rot in the field._  
_Yea, he shall be born again seven times_  
_and grasp the sword in his hand._

You shall be born again. And again. As many times as is needed, from however big a mountain of ashes as is needed. You will bury however many unrequited loves as is needed.

Even if it were so damn _hard_ for Deacon to carry on.

Because you are Deacon, and you are on a mission.

You are Deacon who is running out of time.

Next to you stands your Project Wanderer. Three years in the making and two hours in production. The unexpected Plan Whichever-Letter-You're-Going-At. Desdemona, and Carrington, and Glory and every-goddamn-one else keep telling you it's a fool's errand to gamble your shared future on a rogue variable, but you've been a gambling man for many, many years now.

Besides, you've been following the guy closely for two years. You know who he is. The risk will be great, but the payoff in the end… Dare you even dream about it?

Project Wanderer watches Tommy Whispers. His dark lashes softly frame his eyes. The black mohawk is a curly mess on his forehead.

Tommy's gun sits well in his tattooed hand.

Wanderer: your final plan to take down the Institute. You don't know what their exact plan was with the Vault, but this thawed out icicle is **_yours_**. He is the key to something, you just don't know what it is yet. Fate and other such otherworldly nonsense you've always heartily dismissed… until after two years of agonizing waiting you heard Tinker Tom yell out someone's walking the trail and on the surveillance feed you saw him. He found his way to you, all on his own. Like how you found him that long time ago. You've found him to be a poet and a singer, found him plying his trade in street corners, the Dugout Inn and the Third Rail, and you’ve spied on him in secret places in secret private moments you feel like you should never have spied on. He is a sore thumb in the aching palm of the Commonwealth with his soft eyes and soft-spoken soft voice.

But you, Deacon, are a good spy.

You know he will die too. So remember to guard your heart, because you're not sure how many more cracks it can take.

Carrington's prototype, the target of this mission, is in your hands. You're ready to leave this place behind, but Project Wanderer is not.

He speaks:

_"I am still I, and you are still you."_

You stare at him, and he stares at Tommy. You wish he wouldn't, you fear he'll catch something that will make him share Tommy's fate.

He stands there like a priest giving the poor dead bastard his last rites. The green of his Pip-Boy illuminates him in a sickly light.

He continues the gentle poem:

_“Whatever we were to each other, that we are still._

_Speak of me in the easy way you always used to._  
_Let my name be ever the household word that it always was._  
_Let it be spoken without an effort._

_I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near.”_

Idly you wonder if he'd give you, too, your last rites when you die. God, how you hope you will be gone before him so you'll never have to watch the light fade from his eyes, too.

Your hands tighten around the prototype. He looks up at you. You're suddenly very aware of how you're not anymore in one of the disguises you’ve approached him as. You can't come to him tomorrow as a whole new person and wipe away what has happened thus far. You, both, will have to carry this moment into your coming partnership. Whatever happens today, tomorrow, next week, you will have to live with it.

You can't shove the skeletons back in their closets once you've shown them. He has caught the scent of the miserable little man you've kept well hidden.

He leaves the room with such sadness that you’re almost inclined to tell him he shouldn’t waste compassion on you. Almost. Because during the two years you spent as a shadow after him across the Commonwealth, you wanted to tell him “I’m sorry for you” as much as you wanted him to tell you the same. Even if his empathy is veiled in self-pity for his lost past life, it doesn’t matter to you because it’s still more than what anyone has ever felt for you in a long, _long_ while.

You look at Tommy once more. You're breathing because of time stolen from him, and the others. Someday soon you will have to give it all back, and you're long overdue.

But not yet. Not quite yet. Tommy might be waiting for you, somewhere very near, but so is someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems:  
General Kuribayashi's death poem (Kumiko Kakehashi, So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War)  
Death Is Nothing At All by Henry Scott-Holland (abbreviated and modified)
> 
> Mood song:  
https://playinglleaflet.tumblr.com/private/190988425196/tumblr_RWBlmwGVWNrDkHMLU
> 
> //EDIT 3.4.2020: I've got this fic daily on my mind, but the next chapter is proving to be full of hurdles I'm trying my damnest to overcome.


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